Performance - How well does it take pictures?

Image quality is the most important aspect of camera performance and the A700 does very little to disappoint in that area. Its 6 megapixel sensor produces images with below average image noise.  Below ISO 200, noise is virtually absent from images. Noise starts appearing at ISO 200 but is not significant until ISO 800 for bright subjects and ISO 400 for dark subjects.  Curiously, noise seems to mostly affect the blue color channel. See our sample crops and images for examples. Canon still has not caught up with the Fuji SuperCCD HR sensor but the A700 definitely shows some progress.

The compact 6X optical zoom lens is quite an achievement. It produces sharp images throughout its zoom range with barely visible corner softness at wide-angle. The lens also shows very little optical distortion which normally occurs in compact lenses with long zoom ratios. Chromatic aberrations were rarely present and only at wide angle next to overexposed areas. Happily there was no hint of vignetting either from this lens. The downside of the lens is that it has a narrow maximum aperture at the telephoto end (F4.8). This makes it less useful for indoor shots, but the same is true for competing cameras with zooms more than 4X.

Exposure accuracy is very good. Dynamic range is typical of this class of camera, the A700 manages to hold details in both highlights and shadows simultaneously under normal outdoor conditions. Under the same conditions, colors were quite accurate except for nearly overexposed colors. In such cases, the A700 sometimes under saturates some colors like bright reds and greens. Nevertheless, the A700 generally produces accurate and beautifully saturated colors.

Indoor color performance is also very good as long as automatic white-balance is not used. The automatic system leaves strong colors casts in images produced under artificial lighting. Using custom while-balance however produces highly accurate colors indoors. Preset white-balance is also excellent for fluorescent and good for tungsten.

Speed of operation is impressive where it counts. Shutter lag is low and so is focusing. Even in low-light, the A700 manages to focus well.  Focusing is quite fast in bright light and a bit slower in low-light, but still better than average. Playback is also extremely fast for changing images and zooming.  The slower functions of this camera are startup speed, shot-to-shot speed and flash recycle time.  Startup speed and shot to shot-to-shot speed were below average at 1.5s and 1.7s respectively. Flash recycling was the slowest and varied between 3s and 8s. The LCD also blanks during flash recycling. The flash recycling time is disappointing because that is one area where the Canon Powershot A620 does better. Versus other competitors, the A700's flash-recycling time is below average.

The A700 boasts an impressive continuous drive mode which runs at 2 FPS until the memory card fills up.  Not having a shot limit is rare, even in DSLR cameras. In practice, the performance of this mode is greatly diminished by the fact that the LCD display significantly lags the action. Luckily, there is still an optical tunnel viewfinder on this camera.  Like most such viewfinders, it has a tight view, showing about 80% of the final image.

A700 vs A620

 

The Canon Powershot A700 is the first Canon flagship camera to dropout of the megapixel race. Indeed, its predecessor, the A620, boasted one extra megapixel. In exchange, the A700 brings a sharp 6X optical zoom lens, instead of the A620's 4X lens, and a higher maximum ISO setting of 800, instead of 400. The main premise for reducing the megapixel count is lower image noise, which the A700 did achieve in our tests, but still not the point of competing with the Fuji Finepix F10.

 

The Powershot A620 is noticeably bigger and heavier than the A700. This may be surprising considering the A700's 6X optical zoom, but we must consider that the A620 uses 4 AA batteries, rather than 2.  The use of 4 batteries seems to advantage the A620 in terms of flash-recycling time. Even though the A620 has an extremely impressive 500 shots-per-charge battery life, the A700 achieves 400 shots-per-charge using half the batteries! So, relative to battery costs, the A700 is even more impressive.

There are several less important differences between these two cameras, like the smaller LCD on the A620, faster shot-to-shot speeds on the A620 and some additional features on the A700. When choosing between the two, the most important factor will be image quality and zoom. The A700 produces measurably less image noise but occasionally clips colors in areas close to maximum brightness. Since this can be avoided using a small amount of  negative exposure compensation, most people should prefer with Canon Powershot A700.

Conclusion

This camera, while not perfect, turns out to be an excellent one. It is suitable for general photography both as a point-and-shoot and for various creative photography subjects. Image quality and versatility of this camera is surprisingly good. Noise levels are low for a compact camera, however the Fuji Finepix  E900 is currently the only compact digital camera that beats it. Image sharpness is excellent and so are exposure, shot-to-shot speeds and focus speeds. Color is generally quite accurate and vibrant, except for the occasional problem in very bright areas of images. The Canon Powershot A700 does have other downsides but it scores where it counts for a photographic tool. Indoor and action photography are really the weak points of this camera due to its slow flash-recycling and LCD update latency in continuous drive mode.

• See outdoor crops
• See indoor crops
• See sample image gallery

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